Local director wins film award at Malaysia festival

TAIPEI--A Taiwanese director has won the top prize in a short film festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, pocketing around US$5,000 in prize money.

Hsieh Chun-yi, a graduate film student at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Asia, won the top award of the Kuala Lumpur International Short Film Festival with his film “Braid” on Thursday.

The film, which depicts the hardships of a single father trying to raise his young daughter, also won the Student Project Award at the festival, said the organizer of the event, which attracted 1,000 submissions from 75 countries.

The film, which lasts around 15 minutes, had previously won the award for Best Asian American Student Filmmaker from the Directors Guild of America and the best student short film at the Traverse City Film Festival in 2011, as well as being selected for the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival's Best Narrative Short award.